


Tales of a Retired Desperado

by Usagiladyofmoon



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Red Dead Redemption 2
Genre: F/M, High Honor Arthur Morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22785700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Usagiladyofmoon/pseuds/Usagiladyofmoon
Summary: An elderly woman has quite the story to tell at the family reunion, from her time in the Van Der Linde gang following the tragedies that befell them to where she sits now at a family reunion finally getting to tell her tale. She now has the task of filling in her family about the entirety of her past, how she had to flee while expecting, the loss of the love of her life, and how she has had to cope with it since. How will her family take it when she has the proof to show it?
Relationships: Abigail Roberts Marston/John Marston, Arthur Morgan/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	Tales of a Retired Desperado

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress as I have never written for RDR2 and have only completed the story mode twice. I am going to try to keep the characters in character! This is a HIGH HONOR Arthur!
> 
> I am going to try and keep this to perhaps 10 chapters maximum. If I get carried away *shrugs* who knows...
> 
> Please keep your comments kind and no harsh critique please.

"Grandma.... What's that picture?" A young boy pointed to a picture that was age weathered and had scorch marks around the edges on the photograph.

The young boys older sister looked at their parents who had just sat down on the couch inside of their grandmother's home then back to her brother, "Grandma ain't in the mood to play TWENTY questions!"

"But.... I want to know! This is a new picture! And it looks old! Older than the other ones! And it looks like something out of The Lone Ranger or a John Wayne movie!"

"The Lone Trail?"

"Yeah! Lookit!" The boy moved to grab the picture frame when a aged hand shot out as quick as lightning and grabbed his.

"Don't touch that picture son. That has a lot of priceless memories for me in that picture. If you want to see and know. Just ask me. I ain't against it."

"I'm sorry grandma Ashley....."

Blue eyes softened at her grandson who was a spitting image of his father, who looked like HIS father.... And seeing those eyes and looking at the picture brought forth a surge of emotions making the elderly ladys eyes well with tears.

"Ma, you okay?"

"Y-yeah.... jus' give me a momen'.... I want to go out to my tree.... I know the family is arrivin' for the reunion...."

They had made it out to the tree and sat a rocking chair down for the elder who sat in it with a huff and adjusted her shawl. Looking over her family, her once dull blue eyes held a sharpness to them that they had never seen. 

They were calculating and stern, measuring them up as if they were worthy for a fight. The family and new arrivals sat around on wooden chairs, wicker chairs and on blankets spread out on the ground eagerly awaiting the matriarch of the family to speak.

"I have something to tell all of y'all. This picture I hold in my hands has your daddy in here Charles, and before you asked no you weren't named for him. But after another person in this picture. Jacob you like cowboys right? Outlaws and desperados?"

Jacob looked at his grandmother in excitement, "Yeah!"

A smirk formed on her carmine red painted lips, "Would you be surprised if I told you that your sweet little grandma used to ride with the Van Der Linde gang? That she used to be part of a group of people that hated the law but robbed from the rich to give to the poor like Robin Hood had done.... Until the leader had his mind poisoned by the whisperings of an evil man only out to destroy the leader?"

All of the faces around her looked at her in disbelief. This frail little old woman, a member of a gang of outlaws? There was no way!

The elders eyes narrowed and she looked at her oldest grandsons in their early teens, "Thomas! Andrew! Go get that blue trunk from my room that has the fire damage on it! Now go on! Get goin!"

Several tense minutes passed before her two grandsons appeared carrying a trunk between them that was charred at the edges. They set the trunk down at her feet and opened the lid. 

The elderly woman reached in and pulled out a weather beaten journal and a gun belt that held rusty Cattleman Revolvers....

Her son looked at his mother in shock as he saw the gun belt, "Ma.... Those guns.... I remember them....."

"Well I reckon you would. After all these guns defended us from any rustlers, highwaymen.... Pinkertons...."

A look of confusion washed over the group, Pinkertons? Highwaymen, rustlers.... What other secrets did the little old woman hide in this chest?

Jacob grabbed a partially charred photo with two men sitting and the upper half of a torso with his hand on one of the mens shoulders his face gone from where the fire burnt the picture. "Grandma.... Who are these people? And why does one look like Pa?" 

He leaned forward and extended his hand to show the picture, his grandmas chest hitching with a shuddering gasp, "I never thought I would see this image again.... Damnit Charles...." She wiped her eyes, "Those are two of the best men I ever knew. Hosea Matthews and....." She looked at her eldest son and took a deep breath, "Your father.... Arthur Morgan."

"Wait. My father was a criminal? An outlaw? Who is the person with their hand on his shoulder?"

"Your father was a criminal yes, he robbed, killed.... But times back then were much more different than they are now. If you were approached on horseback while in a carriage or on your own horse you had to keep your hand on your gun ya hear? Your father only killed as needed killin' and saved as needed savin', it wasnt like he did it cause he liked to. Lord knows that man had a rage streak, but he killed only to protect. That other man that's missing from that picture is none other than Dutch Van Der Linde. The bastard who betrayed your father and uncle John."

"Uncle John... Ain't he dead?"

"Oh yes, by the same Pinkertons who hunted me down and his son Jack killed Agent Ross after they went back on the promise of wiping John's record clean. Abigail died two to three years later.... Still say she died of a broken heart. Don't know where Jack is or if he is still alive...."

"Grandma, who are the rest of the people in the picture?"

A withered finger pointed to each person in the picture, "Dutch, Arthur, Hosea, Miss Grimshaw, Pearson, Bill Williamson, Javier Esquella, Me, Sean Macguire, the Callender brothers, Lenny Summers, Uncle, Charles Smith, Mrs Adler and the rat that ruined everything.... Micah Bell."

She spat on the ground and grimaced, "I should have been the one to put a bullet in his skull for your daddy Charles... But it was when we were still moving and roving about. We stopped long enough to visit your Uncle John, Uncle, Abigail, and Jack when Mrs Adler stopped by and told us all that she found out where Dutch and Micah were hiding out..."

The members of the family gathered closer their interests piqued. 

"Y'all want a tale dontcha? Or do ya want me to keep it short and sweet?"

Ever the excitable one, Jacob jumped up with his cousin William in glee, "Well we have all weekend and it is Friday... So yes! We want to hear this tale!"

A smile curved the womans lips upward, "It all started after a robbery went awry in a town called Blackwater......"


End file.
